By Selvan Durairaj | Finance & Legal Feature | The WFY Magazine October 2025 Edition
Afterlife in the Digital Age: When Your Loved One Dies, Who Holds the Keys to Their Online World?
The Password Problem of Modern Grief
We plan for weddings, holidays, and promotions, but rarely for death. In the digital age, however, the most difficult part of loss often begins after the funeral. When a loved one dies, we are left not only with their memories but also their passwords, subscriptions, and digital footprints, scattered across devices, apps, and clouds.
Emails, social media, cryptocurrency, online banking, medical portals, streaming accounts, and even digital photo albums are locked behind multi-factor authentication. Unless the deceased has left clear instructions or access rights, families find themselves locked out of a digital life that may contain emotional memories and essential financial data.
This is the new grief: part emotional, part bureaucratic, and part technological.
In the last decade, the problem has grown so widespread that lawyers and financial planners call it “the second death”, the one that happens when a person’s online identity is deleted or lost forever because no one can access it.
Section 1: The Hidden Crisis Behind Every Password
According to a 2024 report by Deloitte, the average Indian professional manages over 90 online accounts, from bank logins to food delivery apps. Yet, only 4 per cent of people have documented how these should be handled after their death.
For the Indian diaspora, spread across multiple legal jurisdictions, the problem is magnified. An NRI in London might have investments in India, a crypto wallet in Singapore, an insurance policy in Dubai, and email accounts stored on American servers. When they die unexpectedly, their digital and financial lives become a maze.
In one striking case in Canada, a widow spent over 16 months trying to retrieve her husband’s business Gmail account because it held invoices for pending payments. Google required court orders, death certificates, and notarised identification, all of which took endless paperwork and emotional exhaustion.
The question is painfully simple: when we die, who can access what we leave behind in the cloud?
Section 2: The Digital Estate – What We Now Own Online
The digital world has quietly expanded the idea of “estate.” Earlier, inheritance meant land, money, or jewellery. Today it also includes:
- Emails and cloud documents – where contracts, tax returns, and correspondence live.
- Online bank accounts and mutual fund portals – often paperless and password-protected.
- Cryptocurrency and online investment platforms – sometimes worth lakhs, yet untraceable without access keys.
- Subscription-based assets – like software, online trading tools, and eBooks.
- Social media accounts – containing personal photos, professional pages, and monetised content.
- Digital vaults – containing insurance documents, property deeds, or legal records.
A 2023 survey by McAfee found that one in five families faced difficulties accessing online banking or utility accounts after a relative’s death. Nearly 60 per cent of respondents admitted they had no idea how to recover these assets.
Section 3: The Emotional Cost of Digital Lockout
When someone dies, their phone and laptop often become the most personal artefacts left behind. But they are also the most inaccessible.
Families struggle to unlock devices protected by facial recognition or complex passcodes. Photos remain trapped in iCloud or Google Photos. Password managers like LastPass or 1Password, designed for security, become near-impossible barriers after death.
There is a profound emotional aspect to this: loved ones long to retrieve pictures, messages, or final emails, not for money, but for closure. Yet privacy laws, ironically meant to protect data, make this almost impossible.
In one well-documented case, Apple refused to unlock a deceased soldier’s iPhone for his parents in the United States, citing privacy rights. The family eventually petitioned a federal court, which took two years to grant limited access.
The digital age has turned mourning into a technical exercise, one that tests both patience and legal literacy.
Section 4: The Legal Vacuum in India and Abroad
Unlike wills or bank nominations, digital assets still occupy a grey legal area in most countries.
In India, the Information Technology Act (2000) governs data protection but says nothing about digital inheritance. The law recognises ownership of electronic data but not transfer of access rights after death.
In the UK, under the Computer Misuse Act (1990), logging into someone else’s account, even after their death, can technically be considered unauthorised access. Similar laws apply in Canada, Australia, and the United States.
A few jurisdictions have begun to act. The Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) in the US (adopted by 46 states) allows designated executors limited access to digital accounts. However, India and most Gulf countries have no such framework.
This leaves diaspora families in legal limbo. A spouse in India trying to access her late husband’s bank account in the UK may need not just a death certificate but also a probate order ,and, in some cases, an executor’s appointment in both countries.
The result? Grieving families become trapped in cross-border bureaucracy.
Section 5: When Financial Life Goes Offline
A 2025 study by India’s National Financial Literacy Mission found that 58 per cent of urban Indians handle all their family finances single-handedly, often the husband or eldest son. Among working couples, the percentage rises to 71.
This means that when the key decision-maker dies, surviving family members face chaos. Even something as basic as paying an EMI or renewing an insurance policy becomes an ordeal.
Here’s what typically happens:
- The spouse cannot operate the joint bank account because it requires both signatures.
- The deceased’s PAN or Aadhaar-linked investments get frozen.
- No one knows where mutual funds or demat accounts are held.
- Credit cards continue to be charged for auto-debits or subscriptions.
- Loan EMIs keep hitting the deceased’s bank account, accumulating penalties.
If there is no nomination or will, the family must go through a succession certificate process, which may take six months to a year, and that too only within India.
For NRIs, where documents must be attested and couriered across borders, it can take longer. In the Gulf, where employer-linked accounts often freeze upon death, dependents may lose immediate access to even basic savings.
Section 6: The Rise of the “Digital Executor”
To tackle this growing crisis, legal experts now recommend appointing a digital executor, a trusted person authorised to manage your online accounts and devices after death.
Globally, tech companies are slowly catching up:
- Google’s “Inactive Account Manager” lets users decide what happens to their account if it remains inactive for a set period, including granting access to trusted contacts.
- Apple’s “Legacy Contact” allows nominated persons to access iCloud data with a death certificate and an access key.
- Facebook’s Memorialisation Feature converts a deceased person’s profile into a tribute page, managed by a legacy contact.
- LinkedIn allows verified family members to request account closure or memorialisation.
However, these tools work only if the user has set them up in advance. Most people haven’t.
Lawyers now include “digital directives” as part of estate planning. These specify how email, social media, and digital wallets should be handled. Yet, in India, awareness remains limited, less than 3 per cent of wills include instructions for online accounts.
Section 7: Cryptocurrency – The Dark Hole of Inheritance
Nothing exposes the digital inheritance gap more dramatically than cryptocurrency.
Crypto assets, Bitcoin, Ethereum, NFTs, are stored in decentralised wallets with private keys. If those keys are lost, the assets vanish forever. No court, government, or exchange can recover them.
A 2023 report by Chainalysis estimated that 20 per cent of all Bitcoin in circulation, worth over $80 billion, is lost due to forgotten or inaccessible keys. Many of those owners are deceased.
In India, young investors increasingly dabble in digital currency, but few have written down their recovery phrases or shared them securely. The situation is worse among NRIs holding crypto across multiple jurisdictions, where laws are unclear and tax implications vary.
Estate lawyers now call cryptocurrency “the black hole of inheritance.” The only safeguard is proactive documentation, safely storing recovery phrases in sealed digital vaults or with lawyers under escrow.
Section 8: A Step-by-Step Guide – Preparing for Digital Legacy
For readers wondering where to begin, here’s a practical roadmap:
1. Make a Digital Inventory
List all critical accounts, emails, social media, cloud storage, financial apps, insurance portals, and subscription services. Note their purposes, not just names.
2. Use a Password Manager
Tools like Bitwarden or Proton Pass allow you to store logins securely. Many provide emergency access features that can be activated by a trusted contact after verification.
3. Enable “Legacy Contact” Options
Activate this in Apple, Google, and Facebook accounts. Nominate your spouse, sibling, or adult child.
4. Draft a Simple Will
It doesn’t have to be complex. A plain document, signed and witnessed, specifying who gets access to which accounts, can prevent enormous legal hassle. Include “digital assets” explicitly.
5. Store Credentials Offline
Never rely solely on cloud storage. Maintain one physical record, printed or handwritten, stored in a sealed envelope in a safe or locker.
6. Inform Your Family
The best system is worthless if no one knows it exists. Communicate the basics to your family: who to contact, where records are kept, and which lawyer or executor handles them.
7. Review Annually
Passwords, policies, and digital assets change frequently. Review your inventory at least once a year, ideally during tax season.
Section 9: The Role of Banks and Institutions
The responsibility is not just personal; institutions must evolve too.
Banks, insurance firms, and digital service providers need standardised policies for succession.
For example:
- Some Indian banks still insist on in-person verification for claim settlement, even when heirs live abroad.
- Mutual fund portals may require nominees to submit notarised copies of IDs and death certificates, delaying access for months.
Regulators are beginning to act. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issued 2024 guidelines urging financial institutions to maintain updated nomination databases and simplify claim procedures for NRIs.
Fintech startups are also stepping in. Platforms like “SafeVault India” and “AfterPass” offer subscription services that automate the process, notifying family members, managing documentation, and transferring access based on pre-set triggers.
While such services raise questions of trust and privacy, they signal a new era of digital estate management.
Section 10: The Legal Future – Data as an Inheritable Right
Globally, lawmakers are recognising the need for posthumous digital rights.
The European Union’s Digital Services Directive (2023) has begun exploring frameworks for “data succession.” In France, citizens can submit digital directives to a national repository, designating who can access their data after death.
India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act (2023) is a step forward in defining consent and privacy, but it stops short of addressing inheritance. Experts urge the Ministry of Electronics and IT to consider posthumous data access as a natural extension of ownership rights.
Legal scholars propose that digital data should be treated like property, inheritable unless expressly prohibited by the deceased.
Such reforms would bring relief to countless families caught between privacy laws and practical realities.
Section 11: Emotional Digital Legacy – Beyond Finances
Digital inheritance is not just about money; it’s about memory.
Emails, photos, and voice notes form the emotional archives of modern life. They carry stories, relationships, and identities.
For many families, recovering these is as important as financial assets.
Psychologists call it digital mourning, the process of interacting with the online presence of someone who is gone. Memorialised social media accounts often become spaces of shared remembrance, helping people grieve collectively.
Yet, this requires intentional planning. Deciding what to preserve, what to delete, and what to share is a deeply personal act, one that families should discuss openly before it’s too late.
Section 12: The Cultural Silence Around Death Planning
In India and much of the diaspora, talking about death remains taboo. It is considered inauspicious, a conversation to be postponed indefinitely. But avoidance is costly.
The irony is stark: we insure our cars, phones, and even pets, yet most of us leave our digital and financial lives uninsured against death.
Experts argue that the conversation must shift from “morbid” to “mature.”
Discussing legacy, both material and digital, is not pessimism, it is responsibility.
Workshops on financial literacy, estate planning, and cybersecurity should become part of adult education, especially in diaspora communities where cross-border complexity adds layers of risk.
Section 13: Case Study – A Tale of Two Families
Consider two families, both Indian, both middle-class, both abroad.
In one, a 45-year-old software engineer in Dubai dies suddenly of cardiac arrest. He had multiple online trading accounts, a cryptocurrency wallet, and life insurance policies, but no will. His wife spends over a year trying to trace his assets. Some were forfeited due to inactivity. His crypto investments, worth nearly ₹18 lakh, are lost forever.
In the other, a family in London faces the same tragedy, but the husband had prepared a digital will. He had used Google’s Inactive Account Manager and shared his password vault recovery key with his wife. Within a week, she had access to all documents, insurance claims, and even a message he had left in an email draft titled “If Anything Happens.”
The difference between chaos and calm was simply preparation.
Section 14: The Indian Diaspora Perspective
For NRIs, the stakes are higher. Cross-border inheritance involves tax laws, dual citizenship constraints, and multiple legal systems.
Diaspora experts suggest three essential precautions:
- Create Parallel Documentation – Maintain copies of all important records (PAN, Aadhaar, NRI status, insurance, property) in both digital and physical forms.
- Use International Executors – Appoint legal representatives authorised in both jurisdictions.
- Declare Overseas Assets Transparently – To avoid tax or compliance issues during succession.
Many embassies and consulates now provide attestation and succession support cells for citizens abroad. However, awareness remains limited. WFY readers in the diaspora must take note: digital estate planning is as vital as remittances or property investment.
Section 15: Towards a New Kind of Preparedness
If the 20th century was about life insurance, the 21st century is about digital insurance. Not in the sense of policies, but preparedness.
The idea is simple: every person should be able to answer two questions:
- “If I die tomorrow, can my family access everything they need?”
- “If my partner dies tomorrow, can I?”
If the answer is no, the work remains unfinished.
Digital death planning should now be as normal as writing a will or paying taxes. It is not about paranoia, but peace, knowing that one’s life, digital or otherwise, is accounted for.
The Living Legacy
Death in the digital age has two endings, the physical and the virtual. The first we cannot avoid; the second we can prepare for.
The truth is that no algorithm can replace foresight. Passwords die with people; access dies with ignorance. But foresight, shared documentation, and open conversation can turn loss into continuity.
In the end, planning for death is not about fear, it is about love. It ensures that when our time comes, the ones we leave behind inherit not confusion, but clarity.
So tonight, before you scroll mindlessly through another screen, take ten minutes to make a list, your accounts, your passwords, your policies. Store it safely. Tell someone you trust.
Because your digital life, like your real one, deserves a plan.